MN Attorney General Keith Ellison on his narrow win and his priorities moving forward
Attorney General Keith Ellison greets supporters during the Minnesota DFL election night party at the Intercontinental Saint Paul Riverfront hotel on Wednesday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison speaks with host Cathy Wurzer about his tight election and priorities moving forward into his second term.
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We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.
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Audio transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] INTERVIEWER: Well, one of the close races we watched Tuesday night was the Minnesota Attorney general's race. Polls showed it was going to be tight, and it was, with incumbent DFLer Keith Ellison defeating Republican challenger Jim Schultz by just over 20,000 votes. The Associated Press finally called the race for Ellison at 1:05 PM yesterday. Now this will be the former congressman's second term as Attorney General. Keith Ellison is on the line right now to talk a little bit more about what he's thinking about moving forward. Congratulations on your win.
KEITH ELLISON: Thank you. Thank you, Cathy. And great job reporting on the whole race. It was very complicated and a lot of tight races, and so hats off to you as well.
INTERVIEWER: Well, and the whole team here, too, thank you. You know, you won, but not by much. What does that close margin say to you?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, what it says is that they spent $3 million worth of ads just saying a lot of things that I think were not true, and still Minnesotans came out and said that they want an attorney general who's going to be a strong consumer protector, who's going to stand up for their rights, and yes, is going to play an important but defined role in public safety.
Given the changes in the Minnesota State legislature, I'm hoping that we can get our budget approved for more prosecutors. We certainly could put them to work. And I think that that's something that I've been working on for four years, and I'm hopeful that we can get it done now.
INTERVIEWER: The race centered on crime as you say and abortion access. Does your approach to defending abortion access change any now that Democrats control the House, Senate, and the governor's office?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, hopefully, we can have a statute that will protect that right. Maybe even some folks who are thinking about putting it on a statewide ballot measure, but I think that it is important for Minnesota, which is a beacon for people's rights to make their own reproductive choices to sort of nail it into the ground to make sure that we're always going to be a place where people can have their rights vindicated and where you can get a safe, legal abortion if you need one.
But look, it's not just that. It's also what Clarence Thomas said in the Dobbs decision. We've got to protect the right to contraception. We've got to protect the right to marriage. We've got to protect the right to people for the government staying out of people's bedrooms. There's a lot of things when it comes to personal rights that are still on the line. And Minnesota, I'm proud, is a beacon of rights for people.
INTERVIEWER: And you worry about the erosion of those rights?
KEITH ELLISON: Yeah, you know, I mean, look, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, as they say. And that means we've got to keep our eyes on our rights and protect those rights. And so I'm going to be very, very vigilant, working hard. We still got a US Supreme Court, which I think is not a friend of people's civil rights. And so there's still a lot of work for us to do.
INTERVIEWER: So I mentioned crime also being a big issue, and this came up in debates that the attorney general's office has a limited role in prosecuting criminal cases. It sounds like you're going to ask the legislature for more money to add more attorneys to your office's fairly small criminal division. Is that right?
KEITH ELLISON: That is right. But I want to tell you that even though our role is limited, it is still very important. Most of the counties around our state-- and we have 87 County attorneys who are elected who do a great job-- they don't need us for the ordinary workaday crime cases that come through their office. But when there is a horrific murder, or a criminal sexual assault, or a sex trafficking, drug trafficking case, they need us, and we want to be there to help them.
And so I've tripled our criminal division. We had planned on doing much more than that. But we don't ever plan on usurping the role of the traditional county attorney. Crime in Minnesota for 150 years has been investigated and prosecuted locally. It's going to stay that way. But now, hopefully, counties will know that if they need a hand, we will be there and ready to help them.
INTERVIEWER: See, how do you see yourself working with the new Hennepin County Attorney, Mary Moriarty on prosecution of police misconduct cases going forward?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, you know, Mary Moriarty and I met in 1988 when we were law students at the University of Minnesota Law School. We've been friends ever since. And I suspect we're going to work very carefully and closely together. Look, we're going to do what's needed for the people of our Hennepin County and the rest of the state of Minnesota, but I know that we're going to have a close working relationship.
By the way, Martha and I, we're friends, and I want to congratulate her on a race well run. But of course, only one person gets to win, and so that was me, though congratulations to Mary.
INTERVIEWER: So before you go, you tackled issues in your first term-- climate change, the opioid crisis, who or what might you take aim at in a second term?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, actually, we've been working very diligently on using civil tools to promote public safety. That's something that we will be doing. For example, the lawsuit we did on the problem properties at Lyndale and Broadway, where they were known to allow nuisance activity to take place, we want to make sure that we're promoting public safety.
We're very concerned about the proliferation of negligent gun sales. You can't have a serious conversation around guns and violent crime without talking about guns. We're going to continue to think about how we can make a positive difference there.
We also are concerned about the illegal sales of catalytic converters. I mean, you can't sell them. That's a civil matter. But that's in our wheelhouse. So that's something we're going to look at, too. But we are committed to public safety as always, but we're going to play the role that we're supposed to play, which is as a consumer protector, a prosecutor of last resort, and that's what we're going to do.
INTERVIEWER: As you know-- you've done this work for a very long time. I'm talking about politics and running for office. There's always lessons to be learned after every election, right? So what did you learn?
KEITH ELLISON: That I'm proud of the work that I did, and I'm proud of the staff. I did learn that it is important to communicate to our non-political staff that in the course of a political campaign, there might be some folks who implicitly criticize them, but I believe in them, and they are wonderful, great people and that they have my full support.
I will tell you that over the course of the next few years, I want to make sure that people in the law enforcement community know that the truth is that I am and have always been supportive of the work they do and believe in them 100% and that if there's some fence-mending there, I'm hoping to do it. But we will be reflecting on what we need to do going forward. And hopefully, the public will help us in that conversation and signal to us what their ideas are, and we'll continue to do the very best we can for the people of the state of Minnesota.
INTERVIEWER: All right, we'll leave it there. Attorney General Keith Ellison, thanks so much.
KEITH ELLISON: All right, thank you.
INTERVIEWER: Keith Ellison just won his second term as Minnesota's attorney general. If you want to catch up on election results, we have a lot of them there. Website, nprmusic.org/politics.
KEITH ELLISON: Thank you. Thank you, Cathy. And great job reporting on the whole race. It was very complicated and a lot of tight races, and so hats off to you as well.
INTERVIEWER: Well, and the whole team here, too, thank you. You know, you won, but not by much. What does that close margin say to you?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, what it says is that they spent $3 million worth of ads just saying a lot of things that I think were not true, and still Minnesotans came out and said that they want an attorney general who's going to be a strong consumer protector, who's going to stand up for their rights, and yes, is going to play an important but defined role in public safety.
Given the changes in the Minnesota State legislature, I'm hoping that we can get our budget approved for more prosecutors. We certainly could put them to work. And I think that that's something that I've been working on for four years, and I'm hopeful that we can get it done now.
INTERVIEWER: The race centered on crime as you say and abortion access. Does your approach to defending abortion access change any now that Democrats control the House, Senate, and the governor's office?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, hopefully, we can have a statute that will protect that right. Maybe even some folks who are thinking about putting it on a statewide ballot measure, but I think that it is important for Minnesota, which is a beacon for people's rights to make their own reproductive choices to sort of nail it into the ground to make sure that we're always going to be a place where people can have their rights vindicated and where you can get a safe, legal abortion if you need one.
But look, it's not just that. It's also what Clarence Thomas said in the Dobbs decision. We've got to protect the right to contraception. We've got to protect the right to marriage. We've got to protect the right to people for the government staying out of people's bedrooms. There's a lot of things when it comes to personal rights that are still on the line. And Minnesota, I'm proud, is a beacon of rights for people.
INTERVIEWER: And you worry about the erosion of those rights?
KEITH ELLISON: Yeah, you know, I mean, look, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, as they say. And that means we've got to keep our eyes on our rights and protect those rights. And so I'm going to be very, very vigilant, working hard. We still got a US Supreme Court, which I think is not a friend of people's civil rights. And so there's still a lot of work for us to do.
INTERVIEWER: So I mentioned crime also being a big issue, and this came up in debates that the attorney general's office has a limited role in prosecuting criminal cases. It sounds like you're going to ask the legislature for more money to add more attorneys to your office's fairly small criminal division. Is that right?
KEITH ELLISON: That is right. But I want to tell you that even though our role is limited, it is still very important. Most of the counties around our state-- and we have 87 County attorneys who are elected who do a great job-- they don't need us for the ordinary workaday crime cases that come through their office. But when there is a horrific murder, or a criminal sexual assault, or a sex trafficking, drug trafficking case, they need us, and we want to be there to help them.
And so I've tripled our criminal division. We had planned on doing much more than that. But we don't ever plan on usurping the role of the traditional county attorney. Crime in Minnesota for 150 years has been investigated and prosecuted locally. It's going to stay that way. But now, hopefully, counties will know that if they need a hand, we will be there and ready to help them.
INTERVIEWER: See, how do you see yourself working with the new Hennepin County Attorney, Mary Moriarty on prosecution of police misconduct cases going forward?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, you know, Mary Moriarty and I met in 1988 when we were law students at the University of Minnesota Law School. We've been friends ever since. And I suspect we're going to work very carefully and closely together. Look, we're going to do what's needed for the people of our Hennepin County and the rest of the state of Minnesota, but I know that we're going to have a close working relationship.
By the way, Martha and I, we're friends, and I want to congratulate her on a race well run. But of course, only one person gets to win, and so that was me, though congratulations to Mary.
INTERVIEWER: So before you go, you tackled issues in your first term-- climate change, the opioid crisis, who or what might you take aim at in a second term?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, actually, we've been working very diligently on using civil tools to promote public safety. That's something that we will be doing. For example, the lawsuit we did on the problem properties at Lyndale and Broadway, where they were known to allow nuisance activity to take place, we want to make sure that we're promoting public safety.
We're very concerned about the proliferation of negligent gun sales. You can't have a serious conversation around guns and violent crime without talking about guns. We're going to continue to think about how we can make a positive difference there.
We also are concerned about the illegal sales of catalytic converters. I mean, you can't sell them. That's a civil matter. But that's in our wheelhouse. So that's something we're going to look at, too. But we are committed to public safety as always, but we're going to play the role that we're supposed to play, which is as a consumer protector, a prosecutor of last resort, and that's what we're going to do.
INTERVIEWER: As you know-- you've done this work for a very long time. I'm talking about politics and running for office. There's always lessons to be learned after every election, right? So what did you learn?
KEITH ELLISON: That I'm proud of the work that I did, and I'm proud of the staff. I did learn that it is important to communicate to our non-political staff that in the course of a political campaign, there might be some folks who implicitly criticize them, but I believe in them, and they are wonderful, great people and that they have my full support.
I will tell you that over the course of the next few years, I want to make sure that people in the law enforcement community know that the truth is that I am and have always been supportive of the work they do and believe in them 100% and that if there's some fence-mending there, I'm hoping to do it. But we will be reflecting on what we need to do going forward. And hopefully, the public will help us in that conversation and signal to us what their ideas are, and we'll continue to do the very best we can for the people of the state of Minnesota.
INTERVIEWER: All right, we'll leave it there. Attorney General Keith Ellison, thanks so much.
KEITH ELLISON: All right, thank you.
INTERVIEWER: Keith Ellison just won his second term as Minnesota's attorney general. If you want to catch up on election results, we have a lot of them there. Website, nprmusic.org/politics.
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